Name that post-apocalyptic sci-fi book(s).

Ashaman42

You guys are always really good at these sort of threads so here we go.

I read a book/series of books about 15 years ago from my library and have been trying to refind it on and off for about 10 years. Was a fairly bleak post apocalyptic series with the main characters being teenagers/young adults that end up leaving their home village/stronghold. Can't recall if they were just looking for anything left from before the apocalypse or hunting for something in particular.

I'm afraid some of the details I have are quite sketchy as I read alot of very similar fiction around about the same time. I'm fairly sure it was in the teenage section of the library but also remember it being fairly graphic.

The things I remember are:

• Fairly sure it was set in the UK, possible it was North America or somewhere in Europe.
• Whatever the apocalyptic event was (maybe nuclear war?) it was long enough ago that the main characters don't remember it.
• Think the community elders remember it though.
• Remember something in the first book about mushroom farms in caves that have to be guarded against rival 'clans'.
• Our group set out exploring/foraging, find a cache of weapons, before they get a chance to properly service them they get set upon by wolves/wild dogs, one chap fires a found gun which jams/explodes and rips half his jaw off.
• The group also get taken in by a little old lady in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, she feeds them a delicious rabbit stew, one guy doesn't eat much and wakes up in the middle of the night feeling very ill, stumbling around looking for somewhere to be sick falls out back door/window into a pile of human bones, turns out lady is drugging visitors, butchering them and feeding them to next set of visitors.

I'm not sure whether the events above are different books or different chapters in one book.

Sorry it's such a iffy set of details but my memory for what occured in which book I've read is awful.

ceres

So far I haven't found anything of note aside from a bunch of Tolkien fan fiction... some of it apparently self-insertion, crossover fan fiction. I could have done without that.

mts

seems a bit like the movie book of eli, but there are enough differences to say thats not it

RadicalTurnip

I'm certain that you're thinking of The Seven Sleepers (No, you aren't).

Man, you've stumped me...Young Adult books have a problem where they disappear much more quickly than normal books do.

Skeezicks

I've been looking through this list but there's a lot of titles. Maybe something will catch your eye.

RadicalTurnip

Skeezicks wrote: »

I've been looking through this list but there's a lot of titles. Maybe something will catch your eye.

I was totally looking through that too!

Morblitz

Man, from your post, that book sounds awesome. I want to read it, I hope we find it!

Is there any chance it is Wild Harbour? There's precious little information, but it talks about a war worse than world war 1-2 (nuclear?) and its set in England/Europe. Set around a farming community. Seems to kind of fit along what you've been saying, do you remember anything about harsh seasonal times?

Edit:
Wild Harbour on Amazon.

Someone posted a pretty good comment on the general plot and themes in the review section. Check it out and see if it rings any bells.

Peccavi

The description kinda reminded me of Terry Brooks Genesis of Shannara trilogy, but that wasn't out 15 years ago, nor did all of the plot points match up.

But for the people above wanting to read post-apocalyptic fiction stories surrounding a group of children who grew up on their own, I recommend that trilogy (though you might want to read the Running With the Demon trilogy as well, to have a better understanding of what's happening).

Tavataar

A pseudo wild guess: Riddley Walker? Came out in 1998.

It has some very strange language, kind of like Clockwork Orange. I heard about it on an NPR review, and then couldn't really bring myself to get into it. Maybe I will try again.

mts

the problem is that a lot of these books share similar themes in stereotypical post apoc storylines.

Darkewolfe

Yeah, I was perusing Amazon for post-apocalyptic youth fiction, and there were strings of 5-6 books which all sounded IDENTICAL in plot to each other. Without more to go on, it'll be really hard to identify this one.

Ryna

I have zero to add, but am excited to find this title..

thankyou

Morblitz

I doubt we'll correctly identify it ourselves. It's really up to the OP to look at what load of titles we throw at him and see what jogs his memory the most I suppose.

exis

Those last two bullet points mean I absolutely need to read this book.

Please reply if you find it.

Ashaman42

Cheers folks. Had a brief look at the suggestions so far. As it is nothing is jumping out at me but will have a closer look when I get in from work.

Will have a good think and see if any more details can be dredged up.

*Edit: Thinking about it, 15 years might be excessive. It might be as little as 10 years ago I read it.

Morblitz

When you say you read it 10-15 years ago, was that roughly the time it came out? Can you give us a sort of estimate on when you think it might have been published? For instance, Day of the Triffids is quite pre 60's in the way it was written, stuff like that? It might help narrow it down a little.

Ryna

yeah, that's right, can you remember if it was all 'yellowed', as in if it was old? that would indicate if it was aged somewhat..

It wasn't a John Marsden novel was it? Tomorrow, When the War Began??

CrossBuster

Early on, your description of the setting sounded a lot like The Tripods Trilogy.

But the description of some of the events in the book probably rules that one out.

But I'm gonna go ahead and say that you should read The Tripods Trilogy anyway.

Ashaman42

Not sure when it was published, I don't think it seemed old though, either in condition or language.

Not Tomorrow, When the War Began (though that looks like a good read). And not Tripods though I have read the first one of the trilogy.

Hmm, this is proving a difficult one. I will try phoning the library and seeing if they have a record of books I've checked out but I'm not even sure they were doing it all on computer when I first joined the library so I may be out of luck there.

ceres

I thought that the rabbit stew=human stew thing would make it easy, so that's what I focused on... I came up empty-handed, though.

Ketar

I was intrigued, but also came up empty-handed while searching. I did turn up a site with a nice list of post-apocalyptic fiction that I'll need to spend more time on though: http://www.intheruins.com/fiction

dorin

Everything I have tried searching for in google turns up this thread, so that's probably not a good sign.